During my stay in Scotland I did some traveling during my off duty time.
After acquiring my british drivers license in early 1971, I explored the highlands
of Scotland, visited Edinburgh several times and visited England and France.

In the spring of 1971 I visited Paris for a week with a few of my Navy buddies.
I re-learned a lot of the french that I had learned in high school and acted as a
translator for my buddies who were interested in the "culture" of Paris's female
population. The photo below-right shows yours truly at the Eiffel Tower.
I spent the entire week walking all over Paris taking pictures of all the tourist
attractions during the day and ventured out to the local pubs with my buddies during
the evening hours. The photo below-left was taken during one of my road trips to
London in the spring of 1972. While in London, I stayed with friends, the brother
of a girlfriend, and was shown parts of London that the typical American tourist never
saw. I let my host do most of the driving. Once I got lost driving in London
at night but evenutally found my way back in the wee hours of the morning.

After I returned from my second trip to London in late March 1972, I received orders
transfering me to Fort Meade Maryland not far from home. This seemed too good to be
true. As it turned out, it was too good to be true and my orders were changed as a
result of events that took place while I was away.

After leaving Navy boot camp in December 1969, I was trained to be a Communications
Technician in Navy 'A' School, and had I served in that capacity during my 25 months in
Scotland. When I graduated from 'A' school, CT was a critical rating due to the shortage
of CTs in the field and the Navy was offering CTs a $25,000 re-enlistment bonus. By 1972
all of that had changed.

When I returned from London in March 1972, I learned that due to an excess number of
personnel in the Communication Technician (CT) rating, the Navy had decided to convert
the ratings of a select group of CTs. I was one of the unfortunate ones who fell
into this group. As a result of this, my orders were amended and my rating was
changed from CTR to Yeoman (YN). My new orders sent me to a ship, the USS Grand
Canyon whose home port was in Newport, Rhode Island. Before I left Scotland, I was
given the opportunity to re-enlist for an additional 6 years and avoid this "mess".
By that time, I knew that serving in the Navy was not being to be in my future, so I turned
the offer down.

During my 25 month stay in Scotland, GM5ASI made 2184 contacts in 191 countries,
all 50 states, and 38 zones (never worked zone 19 or 34). All of my operating was
"casual", with no contesting (this was before I became interested in contesting),
no DX bulletins, and long before PCs and packet DX spotting networks. Sometimes
casual operating was a difficult thing to do, espically when the band was open to
the U.S. As a result I received some impromptu training in handling pileups of U.S.
stations. Even though I was (and still am) a CW operator, I made twice as many
contacts on SSB. Looking back on it, I think this was due to the "novelty" of
operating phone, my home station at the time was CW only, and I had to send CW
with a hand key (a lot of work when handling logging by hand and sending by hand when
working a pileup). The two tables below summarize my activity.

QSO breakout

BAND

CW

SSB

BANDTOTAL

80

136

259

395

40

126

54

180

20

298

725

1023

15

233

323

56

10

3

23

26

TOTAL

796

1384

2184

Zone, State, and Country breakout

BAND

ZONES

STATE

STATE
TOTAL

COUNTRY

COUNTRY
TOTAL

CW

SSB

CW

SSB

80

17

16

8

19

34

49

62

40

17

13

1

13

51

14

57

20

38

29

47

48

83

122

153

15

32

36

36

45

47

75

100

10

7

1

8

8

3

8

10

TOTAL

38

43

49

50

111

170

191

I left Scotland and returned home for 30 days of leave in late June 1972.
The photo below shows my station in the early seventies, after my tour
in Scotland. To run phone (AM), I added an Eico 730 plate modulator
and a Drake 2B receiver which I purchased shortly after returning
home from Scotland in June 1972. By this time, I was in need of a
real operating table! In July 1972, while home on 30 days military
leave, I returned to the Custom House in Baltimore and passed the extra
exam. The hardest part of the exam was sending morse code at 20 words
per minute with a hand key. In those days, you had to send and
receive the code at 20 words per minute for one minute error free - no
multiple guess questions. You were also required to have a general or advanced
class license for at least 2 years before you were eligible to take the extra
exam. Because of my Navy tour of duty overseas, I had to wait an extra
year before I could take the extra exam.

After leaving Scotland, I finished up my Navy duty in Newport, Rhode Island
from July 72 to August 1973. I was stationed on the U.S.S. Grand Canyon,
a World War II destroyer tender which had been converted to a repair ship.
The ship had just returned from a 6 month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea.
During most of my time on board ship, it was under going extensive overhaul.
We spent a few months in dry dock in Boston and several months at the Todd Shipyard
in Brooklyn New York. In February 1973 the ship left Brooklyn to return to
it's home port in Newport, Rhode Island. During my off duty time in Newport,
I
operated from the base club station WA1EXP. The station consisted
of a Collins S-Line and a dipole antenna for 40 and 80 meters. My radio
activity from Newport was somewhat limited. I did not have open access to the
station but had to make arrangements ahead of time to use the station.

In March 1973, the ship left Newport for Guantanamo Bay Cuba to undergo
sea trials. The trip to GITMO took 5 days, two of which I was sea
sick. By the third day at sea I had acquired my sea-legs. Immediately
upon arriving in GITMO, I searched out the base ham radio club station, KG4AN who
I had contacted from Scotland. After checking with the Officer on watch, I was
told I could not obtain permission to use the station because I was not permanently
assigned there.

During the 6 weeks in GITMO from March to April 1973, we conducted
sea trails/war games during the week days and had free time in the evenings
when not on duty. I visited KG4AN several times and got to know some
of the operators. Most of their on-the-air time was spent running
phone patches back to the states. Above-left is a photo of a large
QSL card that was on the club station's shack door and below is a photo of
the radio shack and antennas and an interesting sign I saw on the base.

KG4AN's radio shack and antennas and an interesting sign on the base......
some things don't change.

The USS Grand Canyon at Todd Shipyard in Brooklyn, New York circa late
1972.... early 1973.